Chapter Seven
When Shane woke up the next morning, his nose told him he was in the middle of the forest. As he squinted against the bright morning sun that filtered through the sliding glass doors, his eyes told him he was still in Kimberly’s apartment.
The rest of the night, after her inexplicable meltdown, they stayed on the couch, wrapped up in each other and a plaid blanket, and watched that Korean drama with the subtitles on until Kimberly fell asleep in his arms. Then, he carried her to her bedroom and tucked her under the fluffy, silky duvet before sticking the last of the pizza in her fridge.
As odd as it seemed, Shane didn’t feel awkward about doing it at all.
It was like a scene they should have lived out a thousand times before but never had the chance.
Shane seized the opportunity to take care of her, the way he should have been all along.
And it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
They didn’t talk about what happened. She never confessed what he did wrong or what trigger got pulled during that mind-blowing kiss.
The scent of her hot arousal and the way she returned that kiss told him that, for at least a little while, she liked it.
He desperately wanted to understand what happened but knew how to make it up to her.
He stayed the night on her couch, held her until she didn’t need him to, and didn’t push.
Muscles stiff, he sat up and stretched. The apartment was quiet at the crack of dawn, and by the lack of noise in the neighboring apartments, all was still that Saturday morning.
He took the initiative while she slept and went to the kitchen to begin preparing breakfast for the both of them. Predictably, she had all the ingredients for strawberry pancakes. Her favorite, even as a kid.
As he mixed the batter, he replayed the kiss and everything before and after.
He had never seen her so scared, so distressed, like she was dropped in the middle of a warzone with no gun or helmet.
What did he do? What did he say? Was it all that joking about sex?
Was she afraid he would pressure her? She should have known him better, but then again, he thought he knew her pretty damn well.
Right now, he felt utterly lost and confused about what to do.
They barely spoke a word to one another after it happened.
Just the occasional, One more episode? or Anything to drink?
or Is your arm going numb yet? She probably didn’t expect him to still be in the apartment when she woke up.
Maybe it had something to do with the kiss.
Did he hurt her? He thought women liked little nips and something a little rougher, but respectful.
It had been a long time since they made out, but he recalled Kimberly liked her hair being pulled.
Not hard, but just enough to feel the tension.
It was possible she didn’t like it anymore, but did that warrant such a reaction?
Either way, he was just thankful she let him touch her after all that. The feel of her in his arms again was unbelievable. Like two halves became a whole. That realization made the meltdown even more significant and almost devastating. Maybe not to her, but certainly for him.
When she told him to stop and he watched the way she was so desperate to put space between them, his alpha instincts kicked into high gear.
It was a good thing she didn’t look at him right away or she would have seen the golden eyes of the wolf watching her every twitch and quiver.
For a few milliseconds, the wolf’s thoughts were his own.
All he wanted to do was find what had scared her and kill it.
He wanted to sink his teeth into it, make it scream for mercy, and tear out its insides for her to feast on.
He had a good enough hold over himself by the time she was done crying, but that tight ball of vicious anxiety kept him hypervigilant, even after she went to sleep.
It made him think back to a conversation with his father shortly after Kimberly and her family left Warrington.
They were fighting about the same old tired topic of Shane’s preparedness to be an alpha and Isaac brought up the fact that Kimberly would not make a good mate.
Her lack of dominance would mean Shane would have to put her safety in closer priority, potentially equal to or more than the pack.
Alpha females could hold their own without a mate’s protection.
Kimberly could not. It wasn’t an ideal match for an alpha who, in a moment of choice, had to pick his pack over his mate.
It might also mean that Shane would have to forever be on guard against any threat to Kimberly.
That hypervigilance would be a lifestyle, not just in a time of crisis.
But none of that mattered to him. Kimberly was worth every sleepless night, every clenched muscle, every internal war he might wage with his wolf.
How could he possibly convince her that he was more than willing to take her on, lack of dominance and all, because stuff like that wasn’t important to him when choosing a mate.
Their fathers were wrong. He knew that. His wolf knew that. But did she?
He resolved that he had to go gently from here on.
She called the shots. She made the moves.
Easy and careful. He didn’t want to scare her away, not after they had been apart for so long and they had just one chance to make things right.
And he wanted more of those kisses in his near future.
If he pushed too hard before she was ready, he wouldn’t get another one.
Over the low hiss of batter frying in the skillet, he heard the rustle of bed linens and Kimberly’s deep, sleepy sigh as she awoke.
He held perfectly still but was unsure why.
She’d smell both him and the pancakes. She’d hear his movements and the sizzle of breakfast. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t know he was there.
When he looked inward, he realized it was his wolf that made him do it. Like tensing before an attack, alert and ready to strike. But attack what? Nothing was here. He shook it off and forced himself to tuck the spatula beneath the edge of the cooking pancakes.
Several moments and a couple of pancakes later, Kimberly finally emerged from her bedroom. She looked cute in yesterday’s wrinkled outfit, slept-in hair, and squinty eyes watching him like he was a monkey doing sideshow tricks instead of her high school sweetheart making pancakes in her kitchen.
Shane shot her a wide, cheerful grin. “Good morning.”
Kimberly touched a part of her messy hair and suddenly looked embarrassed, even though she shouldn’t have been. She was still beautiful.
“You’re still a morning person.”
“Having to get up at the crack of dawn to do farm chores before school kind of permanently programmed my internal clock.”
She shuffled into the kitchen, bare feet making a sticky noise on the tile. “Pancakes … Strawberry pancakes!” Kimberly’s eyes widened and a little excitement touched her tired expression.
“They’re still your favorite, right?”
“They are. I was saving those strawberries for a salad, but this is better.”
She leaned against the counter, a safe distance out of reach, but near enough that he could smell the tiny remnants of last night on her clothes. Pizza, arousal, and tears.
“How many do you want?” he asked, pointing to the plate of finished, misshapen pancakes.
She looked long and hard at the pancakes. “I’ll start with one. I don’t have much of an appetite.”
The batter bowl was only half empty, five finished with one in the skillet. Any other time, it’d feel like a waste, but not that morning.
“You feeling okay?”
Kimberly wrapped her arms around her stomach, and her shoulders hunched like she wanted to make herself smaller. Shyness didn’t belong on her.
“Sort of … I don’t know…” She took a long breath. “You didn’t need to do all this. You didn’t need to stay.”
Shane slid the sixth pancake onto the plate and turned off the stove. “Maybe not, but I wanted to. It didn’t feel right to leave.”
They went quiet as Shane fixed their plates and arranged their places at the two-seater dining table in the tiled space between the kitchen and living room. Even when her glass of orange juice was poured, Kimberly didn’t move from her spot against the counter.
Shane studied her, reaching out with all his senses to read her. He needed something, anything, to get him started on the path to helping her. What the hell happened to make her shut down like this?
A few beats passed, and she spoke. “I really am sorry about last night. You have to know it’s not about you.”
“You’re acting like it is about me. I was kissing you when it happened, whatever it was.
You won’t get near me now. You’ll barely look at me.
I’m sorry if that kiss offended you or I pushed too hard.
I didn’t mean to scare you, I just … I don’t know.
I couldn’t stop myself and I could have sworn you felt the same, so I thought it was okay. ”
Shane didn’t mean to make it sound so accusatory, but he was at his wits’ end. She hadn’t been awake for half an hour and he was already fucking up his commitment to not push.
As if it were a challenge, Kimberly lifted her gaze and met his stare, her mouth set.
Anger might have been better than shyness, but not like this.
She shut him out completely now, throwing up a stone wall so high he couldn’t scale it or break it down if he tried.
This wolf didn’t have the breath to blow down her defenses.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “If you say it wasn’t about me, then it’s not about me … Can you tell me what it is about?”
Her brow line softened, but she shook her head. “I really don’t want to.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I won’t make you … Can you promise that whenever you’re ready to talk about it you will?”